Neo is quite the strange case. Most aerofolk dive head first into flight school right off the production line… but not Neo. Instead of taking the course that would be expected of a purpose built passenger plane like himself, Neo chose to go to college instead! Curious about humans and their culture, he wanted to learn all about them — and, honestly, he just wasn’t sure if he was cut out to be a passenger plane anyways.
Unfortunately, while this isn’t unusual for smaller planes, not many campuses are well equipped for storing an airframe as large as his. Despite his best efforts, it becomes clear there’s only one path forward — he hesitantly enrolls in flight school and earns himself a contract with jetBlue. Being the only NEO variant of the A320 in his class, he quickly earns the nickname ‘Neo’.
Unable to catch a break, a mass grounding of all civilian aircraft is ordered immediately after he finishes his first ever passenger flight from SFO to JFK, where he’s forced to share a hangar with an older, grumpy cargo plane named Clipper. Stuck in New York, he does his best to make the most out of their situation. Who knows… maybe he’ll get something out of it?
Clipper can be summarized with two words: old and grumpy. A former passenger plane, he originally flew for Pan Am, before being transferred to KLM after their closure in ‘91. Eventually, after KLM retired their 747s, he was faced with a choice: retire, or become a cargo plane — which is how he ended up as a freighter for Atlas Air.
Unfortunately, Clipper finds cargo work incredibly boring and severely misses flying for the airlines. If you called him washed up, you wouldn’t be wrong. His airframe is one of the oldest still flying, and despite his decades of experience, most other aerofolk (including his own fleet — mostly made up of much newer, cargo-ready 747s) avoid him due to his general grouchiness and unfriendly demeanor.
Of course, the exception is his newly acquired hangar-mate, a much-too-friendly-for-his-own good rookie Airbus A320-N named Neo. After being forced to share a hangar during a mandatory mass-grounding of all civilian flights, the two start to get closer — much to a reluctant Clipper’s annoyance…
Alright I’m working on the overall coherency of my planeverse so if you see posts about it disappearing that’s why 😭
It kinda just started as me making a funny plane sona but it’s evolved into a bit more of a project in my head now, so I need to work on making the timeline make more sense.
Hopefully I’ll have more soon :] I wanna make a masterpost for all the main cast anyways SO!
As usual my ask box is OPENNNN I love getting questions about my silly guys
• Aeromorphs are essentially a super jacked autopilot. Their “anthro” bodies are stored inside their airframe (which is also sentient) and acts as either a first officer or a captain depending on experience/age/certification/etc. Their bodies can leave their airframe, but need to stay within a certain radius of it to function. They’re practically super computers, and only need a third of the training a human pilot does.
• Aeromorphs worked together with humans after gaining sentience to make cheap, eco-friendly fuel for airplanes. Oil companies are really salty about this. They try to make cheaper fuel to get their customers back, but keep getting beat.
• Aeromorphs go to flight school, similarly to humans. However, unlike human flight school, training focuses MUCH more on CRM and human factors rather than actual flying. Aeromorphs are practically immune to somatogravic illusions, hypoxia, etc. and as such learn how to identify and prevent these things in the humans they’re flying with.
• Most Aeromorphs do their own maintenance on both their airframe and bodies. Going to a mechanic is more like going to a doctor and is usually reserved for issues that can’t be self fixed. It’s few and far between, but it does happen.
• Because of their bodies ability to leave its airframe, hangars are designed to be both airframe storage and a living space. Aeromorphs really like to leave their airframes to stretch their legs and do human stuff. Neo himself is VERY obsessed with humans and human culture, initially deciding he doesn’t want to be an airliner and wants to go to college instead. Unfortunately, while it’s common for smaller planes to do this, college campuses aren’t very well equipped for airliners…
• Neo makes friends with two Vietnam veteran planes in College — an EA-6B Prowler and an F-4 Phantom. They don’t have names yet but they’re gay and in love 🌈
• Neo finally accepts his fate and enters flight school. After graduating and flying his first passenger flight from SFO to JFK, a mysterious mass grounding is suddenly ordered applying to ALL civilian airliners. There is much confusion surrounding this. All that’s known is type of plane is irrelevant — airliners of every make and model have been randomly losing control, before nose diving straight down into terrain or water.
• Each crash leaves very, very little evidence. All the NTSB has confirmed to the public is that it’s not bombs. Initially, the crashes start in one part of the US, before cases start to spread in an almost pandemic-like fashion to the rest of the world. Eventually, all countries of all nations are forced to ground their civilian fleets. Notably, military aircraft seem to be immune to whatever is happening.
• Being grounded is not at all fun for Aeromorphs — they start to get an antsy, cabin-fever type feeling after a while. And after being grounded for many months, some airliners start going for joyrides. While these flights typically had no passengers, it became a problem when many of them plummeted to their doom regardless. Now all airliners are required to wear what are essentially flap cuffs. Similar to a tire boot, they’re impossible to remove without causing extreme damage to the wing and prevent it from creating any lift.
• Clipper and Neo are forced to share a hangar due to extremely limited space. No one planned for every plane ever to be grounded at once, after all. Their hangar is located in a hangar complex, with their immediate neighbors being a United 737-MAX named Maxwell and a Lufthansa a380 named Munich.
In our world, nearly all jetBlues have their own names with puns related to the word "blue," or sometimes "mint." How about Neo?
Neo is a bit embarrassed by his…
Thankfully for him, names like this are more for the benefit of humans rather than Aerofolk like Neo himself. Most will have an internal company name as well as a chosen name. It’s much more common to go by chosen name, though there are exceptions!
Alright I’m working on the overall coherency of my planeverse so if you see posts about it disappearing that’s why 😭
It kinda just started as me making a funny plane sona but it’s evolved into a bit more of a project in my head now, so I need to work on making the timeline make more sense.
Hopefully I’ll have more soon :] I wanna make a masterpost for all the main cast anyways SO!
As usual my ask box is OPENNNN I love getting questions about my silly guys
In our world, nearly all jetBlues have their own names with puns related to the word "blue," or sometimes "mint." How about Neo?
Neo is a bit embarrassed by his…
Thankfully for him, names like this are more for the benefit of humans rather than Aerofolk like Neo himself. Most will have an internal company name as well as a chosen name. It’s much more common to go by chosen name, though there are exceptions!
Heyo! I’m trying to be better about interacting more, so ;;; Does Clipper keep any mementos (photos, postcards, etc) from when he still carried passengers? C:
Sure does!! He doesn't like talking about it, though...
Artfight attack for ~QuantumQuasarrr of their a320 character Charlie! Oh, and Neo’s there too (thought it’d be fun to draw him with an older model of a320!)
